Box Office: ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ tries to hold off ‘The Help,’ ‘Final Destination 5’ Friday

It’s going to be very tough for “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” to hold on to the top spot for a second weekend in a row. “Apes” had a stellar debut and strong midweek numbers, but “The Help” and “Final Destination 5” are providing a potent challenge to the box office crown.

“Apes” won Friday with a $8.1 million day for $84.5 million so far. The critically acclaimed Sci-Fi flick should find $20-22 million for the weekend and come painfully close to crossing the $100 million mark.

In second place, “The Help” was just behind with $7.6 million and $17.5 million since debuting on Wednesday. Substantially shattering pre-release polling predictions, “The Help” is on its way to also selling $20-22 million of tickets over the 3-day.

Scaring audiences in the third slot was “Final Destination 5” with $7.3 million. One of the more review-friendly installments in the long-running franchise, “FD5” is looking at $18 million for the weekend. That’s actually lower than what WB was hoping for and would be significantly less than “The Final Destination’s” $27 million debut in 2009.

A significant underperformer yesterday was the Jesse Eisenberg, Aziz Ansari and Danny McBride comedy “30 Minutes or Less.” The R-rated comedy is already less popular than last week’s bomb “The Change-Up.” “30 Minutes” grossed only $4.9 million on Friday for what should be $12-13 million over the three-day. That’s not what Sony expected when they slotted the comedy in the same release frame as previous hits “Superbad” and “Pineapple Express.” However, you could argue the studio’s marketing didn’t differentiate “30 Minutes” from the latter enough. Especially when you see the similarities between the two comedies in the poster and outdoor campaign.

Beginning an exclusive two-week run, “Glee the 3D Concert Movie” made $2.75 million in just 2,440 theaters. Considering the higher ticket prices that has to be disappointing for 20th Century Fox. At best, “Glee” could belt out $7-8 million by end of day Sunday. That’s even less than “The Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience” which bombed with just $12.5 million in Feb. of 2009.